“
I suppose I could let bygones be bygones, forgive and forget, yadda yadda. But where's the fun in that? These pretty little bitches got everything I ever wanted, and now I'm going to make sure they get exactly what they deserve. Does that make me sound awful? Sorry, but as every pretty little liar knows, sometimes the truth's ugly-and it always hurts.
I'll be watching....
Mwah!
-A
”
”
Sara Shepard (Wicked (Pretty Little Liars, #5))
“
Evey: Who are you?
V. : Who? Who is but the form following the function of what and what I am is a man in a mask.
Evey: Well I can see that.
V. : Of course you can, I’m not questioning your powers of observation, I’m merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is.
Evey: Oh, right.
V. : But on this most auspicious of nights, permit me then, in lieu of the more commonplace soubriquet, to suggest the character of this dramatis persona. Voila! In view humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the “vox populi” now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin, van guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.
The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.
Verily this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it’s my very good honour to meet you and you may call me V.
Evey: Are you like a crazy person?
V. : I’m quite sure they will say so.
”
”
Alan Moore (V for Vendetta)
“
Voila! In view humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the “vox populi” now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin, van guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.
Verily this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it’s my very good honour to meet you and you may call me V.
”
”
Alan Moore (V for Vendetta)
“
The first thing you notice about New Orleans are the burying grounds - the cemeteries - and they're a cold proposition, one of the best things there are here. Going by, you try to be as quiet as possible, better to let them sleep. Greek, Roman, sepulchres- palatial mausoleums made to order, phantomesque, signs and symbols of hidden decay - ghosts of women and men who have sinned and who've died and are now living in tombs. The past doesn't pass away so quickly here. You could be dead for a long time.
The ghosts race towards the light, you can almost hear the heavy breathing spirits, all determined to get somewhere. New Orleans, unlike a lot of those places you go back to and that don't have the magic anymore, still has got it. Night can swallow you up, yet none of it touches you. Around any corner, there's a promise of something daring and ideal and things are just getting going. There's something obscenely joyful behind every door, either that or somebody crying with their head in their hands. A lazy rhythm looms in the dreamy air and the atmosphere pulsates with bygone duels, past-life romance, comrades requesting comrades to aid them in some way. You can't see it, but you know it's here. Somebody is always sinking. Everyone seems to be from some very old Southern families. Either that or a foreigner. I like the way it is.
There are a lot of places I like, but I like New Orleans better. There's a thousand different angles at any moment. At any time you could run into a ritual honoring some vaguely known queen. Bluebloods, titled persons like crazy drunks, lean weakly against the walls and drag themselves through the gutter. Even they seem to have insights you might want to listen to. No action seems inappropriate here. The city is one very long poem. Gardens full of pansies, pink petunias, opiates. Flower-bedecked shrines, white myrtles, bougainvillea and purple oleander stimulate your senses, make you feel cool and clear inside.
Everything in New Orleans is a good idea. Bijou temple-type cottages and lyric cathedrals side by side. Houses and mansions, structures of wild grace. Italianate, Gothic, Romanesque, Greek Revival standing in a long line in the rain. Roman Catholic art. Sweeping front porches, turrets, cast-iron balconies, colonnades- 30-foot columns, gloriously beautiful- double pitched roofs, all the architecture of the whole wide world and it doesn't move. All that and a town square where public executions took place. In New Orleans you could almost see other dimensions. There's only one day at a time here, then it's tonight and then tomorrow will be today again. Chronic melancholia hanging from the trees. You never get tired of it. After a while you start to feel like a ghost from one of the tombs, like you're in a wax museum below crimson clouds. Spirit empire. Wealthy empire. One of Napoleon's generals, Lallemaud, was said to have come here to check it out, looking for a place for his commander to seek refuge after Waterloo. He scouted around and left, said that here the devil is damned, just like everybody else, only worse. The devil comes here and sighs. New Orleans. Exquisite, old-fashioned. A great place to live vicariously. Nothing makes any difference and you never feel hurt, a great place to really hit on things. Somebody puts something in front of you here and you might as well drink it. Great place to be intimate or do nothing. A place to come and hope you'll get smart - to feed pigeons looking for handouts
”
”
Bob Dylan (Chronicles, Volume One)
“
Life is not unlike cinema. Each scene has its own music, and the music is created for the scene, woven to it in ways we do not understand. No matter how much we may love the melody of a bygone day or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance within the music of today, or we will always be out of step, stumbling around in something that doesn’t suit the moment. I let go of the river’s song
”
”
Lisa Wingate (Before We Were Yours)
“
You didn’t bring any C-4, did you?” “Javier, you have to let that go. Let bygones be bygones.” He pulled his sidearm and clicked off the safety. “I’ll show you bygones.” “Now, now,” Garrett said, wrestling the gun from him. “Charley brings out the worst in all of us. It’s not her fault.” “He’s right,” I said. “I have a condition.
”
”
Darynda Jones (Sixth Grave on the Edge (Charley Davidson, #6))
“
Gracious words refresh, restore and revive the soul.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
“
It is not okay to ‘live and let live,’ to let ‘bygones be bygones,’ to ‘forgive and forget,’ to let the ‘past be the past’ or any of the other clichés your family and friends will try to persuade you to forget about what happened and to move on. Try not to accept these messages.
”
”
Beverly Engel (The Right to Innocence: Healing the Trauma of Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Therapeutic 7-Step Self-Help Program for Men and Women, Including How to Choose a Therapist and Find a Support Group)
“
Regarding the need to pray, the anarch is again no different from anyone else. But he does not like to attach himself. He does not squander his best energies. He accepts no substitute for his gold. He knows his freedom, and also what it is worth its weight in. The equation balances when he is offered something credible. The result is ONE.
There can be no doubt that gods have appeared, not only in ancient times but even late in history; they feasted with us and fought at our sides. But what good is the splendor of bygone banquets to a starving man? What good is the clinking of gold that a poor man hears through the wall of time? The gods must be called.
The anarch lets all this be; he can bide his time. He has his ethos, but not morals. He recognizes lawfulness, but not the law; he despises rules. Whenever ethos goes into shalts and shalt-nots, it is already corrupted. Still, it can harmonize with them, depending on location and circumstances, briefly or at length, just as I harmonize here with the tyrant for as long as I like.
One error of the anarchists is their belief that human nature is intrinsically good. They thereby castrate society, just as the theologians ("God is goodness") castrate the Good Lord.
”
”
Ernst Jünger (Eumeswil)
“
Let bygones be bygones because everybody knew that forgiveness was divine.
”
”
Lesley Kagen (Whistling in the Dark)
“
Let bygones be bygones
”
”
L.J. Smith (The Vampire Diaries, Volumes 1-4 (The Vampire Diaries, #1-4))
“
The past is like the night: dark but sacred. It's the time when most of us sleep, so we think of the day as the time we really live, the only time that matters, because the stuff we do by day somehow makes us who we are. We feel the same way about the present. We say, let bygones be bygones... Water under the bridge. But there is no day without night, no wakefulness without sleep, no present without past. They are constantly somersaulting over each other.
”
”
Julia Glass (And the Dark Sacred Night)
“
much we may love the melody of a bygone day or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance within the music of today, or we will always be out of step, stumbling around in something that doesn’t suit the moment. I let go of the river’s song and found the music of that big house. I found room for a new life, a new mother who cared for me, and a new father who patiently taught me not only how to play music, but how to trust. He was as good a man as ever I’ve known.
”
”
Lisa Wingate (Before We Were Yours)
“
It seems to me that although they have a respectable sales pitch, this business of a priest having the power to let bygones be bygones and grant us absolution from our scandals is all just one gigantic scam to con loads of money off a haunted and gullible public.
”
”
Karl Wiggins (Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe)
“
The greatest relief is learning to let go. There is no one or nothing of the past that cannot be forgotten. Everything can be forgotten. It all depends on your willingness to let bygones be bygones. Only by putting the past behind you can you live in the present.
”
”
Master Jun Hong Lu
“
Let’s just let bygones be bygones and pretend you and I never happened.”
“That’s not going to be easy,” I tell her.
Because I don’t want to pretend we never happened.
I want to do the opposite.
I want…I think I just want a second chance to see if things can work this time around.
”
”
Karina Halle (Nothing Personal)
“
Ah, so he didn’t tell her anything about what went down. I’m not surprised. I probably wouldn’t if I were him, come to think of it. The less said about all of that the better. Let’s hope he’s decided to let bygones be bygones on that front. Poor bloke. It wasn’t my idea, all of that.
”
”
Lucy Foley (The Guest List)
“
BOOK BEAUTY
Here's the end of that story about the old woman who wanted to lure a man with strange
cosmetics. She made a paste of pages from the Qur'an to fill the deep creases on her face and
neck with. This is not about an old woman, dear reader. It's about you, or anyone who tries
to use books to make themselves attractive. There she is, sticking scripture, thick with
saliva, on her face. Of course, the bits keep falling off. "The devil," she yells, and
he appears! "This is a trick I've never seen. You don't need me. You are yourself a troop
of demons!" So people steal inspired words to get compliments. Don't bother. Death comes
and all talking, stolen or not, stops. Pity anyone unfamiliar with silence when that happens.
Polish your heart with mediation and quietness. Let the inner life grow generous and handsome
like Joseph. Zuleika did that and her "old woman's spring cold snap" turned to mid-July. Dry
lips wet from within. Ink is not rouge. Let language lie bygone. Now is where love breathes.
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems)
“
Had she creased one solitary article, I own I should have felt much greater difficulty in forgiving her; but finding all straight and orderly, I said, “Let bygones be bygones. I am unharmed: why should I bear malice?
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Villette)
“
The Perpetrator’s Narrative: The story begins with the harmful act. At the time I had good reasons for doing it. Perhaps I was responding to an immediate provocation. Or I was just reacting to the situation in a way that any reasonable person would. I had a perfect right to do what I did, and it’s unfair to blame me for it. The harm was minor, and easily repaired, and I apologized. It’s time to get over it, put it behind us, let bygones be bygones. The
”
”
Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined)
“
Giving an A is a fundamental, paradigmatic shift toward the realization that it is all invented—the A is invented and the Number 68 is invented, and so are all the judgments in between. Some readers might conclude that our practice is merely an exercise in “putting a positive spin” on a negative opinion, or “thinking the best of someone,” and “letting bygones be bygones.” But that is not it at all. No behavior of the person to whom you assign an A need be whitewashed by that grade, and no action is so bad that behind it you cannot recognize a human being to whom you can speak the truth. You can grant the proverbial ax murderer an A by addressing him as a person who knows he has forfeited his humanity and lost all control, and you can give your sullen, lazy, secretive teenager an A, and she will still at that moment be sleeping the morning away. When she awakes, however, the conversation between you and her will go a little differently because she will have become for you a person whose true nature is to participate—however blocked she may be. And you will know you are communicating with her, even if you see that she is tongue-tied or too confused to answer you just then.
When we give an A we can be open to a perspective different from our own. For after all, it is only to a person to whom you have granted an A that you will really listen, and it is in that rare instance when you have ears for another person that you can truly appreciate a fresh point of view.
”
”
Rosamund Stone Zander (The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life)
“
Had I known, that last hour sitting there, talking and laughing about trivial things, that there was a clot forming like a time bomb close to his heart, ready to explode, I would surely have behaved differently, held on to him, at least thanked him for all my nineteen years of happiness and love. Not flipped over the photographs in the album, mocking bygone fashions, nor yawned halfway through, so that, sensing boredom, he let the album drop to the floor and murmured, “Don’t bother about me, pet, I’ll have a kip.
”
”
Daphne du Maurier (Don't Look Now and Other Stories)
“
Those who rage against and work against expanding the electorate know what's at stake. The goal is to block access to the ballot and to policy making because letting the agitators inside might yield new laws to remedy inequality or injustice. The fear of these elected officials is a loss of power, grounded in an assortment of causes like racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, or an inchoate desire to keep the world as it was when they sat at the peak of influence. They forget that the bygone days of political tranquility never truly existed—the agitators simply hadn't amassed sufficient power to be heard. But they are getting closer to it every day.
”
”
Stacey Abrams (Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America)
“
Bygones"
The weatherman says heavy rain,
instead it dribbles like an old man
unable to urinate.
In the small orbit of the car,
daylight clings to my collar, simmers in sweat, but I shall drive despite this meridian fry.
I travel in the tremble of tin and tires.
Up ahead, Barron Lake, your lost butterfly locket, Woodport, the warm rocks before the dive.
The sun legs gently over the turbine hills, and always with a little luck I find your house, where torn cotton knits dry on an iron gate, and a vintage bicycle sinks in the garden.
Over rum we discuss the length of our severance, agree to let bygones vanish amid the fray. Then kisses wheedle the lower back down till daybreak quiet as cat paws... treads the bedroom floor.
”
”
Robert Karaszi
“
The unique platform at Baalbek has been there from bygone days, and it is still there intact in its enigmatic immensity; Mount St. Katherine is still there, rising as the highest peak of the Sinai peninsula, hallowed since ancient days, enveloped (together with its twin-peaked neighbor, Mount Mussa) in legends of gods and angels; Fig. 124 The Great Pyramid of Giza, with its two companions and the unique Sphinx, is situated precisely on the extended Ararat-Baalbek line; and The distance from Baalbek to Mount St. Katherine and to the Great Pyramid of Giza is exactly the same. This, let us add at once, is only part of the amazing grid which—as we shall show—was laid out by the Anunnaki in connection with their post-Diluvial Spaceport. Therefore, whether or not the conversation had taken place aboard a shuttlecraft, we are pretty certain that that is how the pyramids came to be in Egypt.
”
”
Zecharia Sitchin (The Stairway to Heaven (The Earth Chronicles, #2))
“
The Perpetrator’s Narrative: The story begins with the harmful act. At the time I had good reasons for doing it. Perhaps I was responding to an immediate provocation. Or I was just reacting to the situation in a way that any reasonable person would. I had a perfect right to do what I did, and it’s unfair to blame me for it. The harm was minor, and easily repaired, and I apologized. It’s time to get over it, put it behind us, let bygones be bygones. The Victim’s Narrative: The story begins long before the harmful act, which was just the latest incident in a long history of mistreatment. The perpetrator’s actions were incoherent, senseless, incomprehensible. Either that or he was an abnormal sadist, motivated only by a desire to see me suffer, though I was completely innocent. The harm he did is grievous and irreparable, with effects that will last forever. None of us should ever forget it. They
”
”
Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined)
“
When we live intensely, we run more risks and we become more fragile.
We already know that people who do nothing suffer nothing. But avoiding doing things out of fear of getting hurt is not a path to growth.
When we mix our fears with reality, we are limiting ourselves.
Don’t forget that the decisions we don’t make also cause us pain.
Be careful about how you interpret what happens to you. If you don’t have an explanation that brings you peace, don’t make one up.
What causes one kind of emotional pain to be more intense than another? Well, it depends on the emotional attachment to the source of the pain. What hurts more intensely is what directly affects us or the people we love. What hurts more is what affects our greatest aspirations and objectives.
We are more easily hurt by what affects our desires or fears, and the more intense our desire, the more painful our frustration when we do not achieve it. The emotional involvement determines and explains the intensity of our pain. The greater the emotional involvement, the greater the pain.
When pain comes in the door, perspective goes out the window, taking with it our ability to reason properly, to analyze events, and to make good decisions.
Each time you remember what happened you transform what happened.
None of our experiences is in vain if we are capable of learning from what happened to us and from the suffering and pain it caused us. But we won’t be able to learn from what happened if we don’t look back and review our experiences.
Carrying your past is like carrying a huge backpack full of stones that prevents you from walking freely. But to walk through life all you need is a bit of water and food, a dream, and a destination—and, in a pinch, you can probably do without a destination.
Let bygones be bygones, learn from what happened, and bring that chapter to a close.
Your beliefs feed your decisions, your fears, and your desires.
Knowledge will set you free, so make an effort to learn, study, read, travel.
”
”
Tomás Navarro (Kintsugi: The Japanese Art of Embracing the Imperfect and Loving Your Flaws)
“
If you want to secure Dhyana, let go of your anxieties and failures in the past; let bygones be bygones; cast aside enmity, shame, and trouble, never admit them into your brain; let pass the imagination and anticipation of future hardships and sufferings; let go of all your annoyances, vexations, doubts, melancholies, that impede your speed in the race of the struggle for existence. As the miser sets his heart on worthless dross and accumulates it, so an unenlightened person clings to worthless mental dross and spiritual rubbish, and makes his mind a dust-heap. Some people constantly dwell on the minute details of their unfortunate circumstances, to make themselves more unfortunate than they really are; some go over and over again the symptoms of their disease to think themselves into serious illness; and some actually bring evils on them by having them constantly in view and waiting for them. A man asked Poh Chang (Hyaku-jo): "How shall I learn the Law?" "Eat when you are hungry," replied the teacher; " sleep when you are tired. People do not simply eat at table, but think of hundreds of things; they do not simply sleep in bed, but think of thousands of things."[FN#239]
”
”
Kaiten Nukariya (The Religion of the Samurai A Study of Zen Philosophy and Discipline in China and Japan)
“
Can't you just let it go? Move on?"
His face darkened. His eyes glared in response and he was silent a long time while his jaw worked over a toothpick. She'd used the same line that the prophet and his representatives had been using for years. Even if these things did happen, there is no point in being bitter. You should forgive and forget and let bygones be bygones.
Kind of galling, considering the insistence upon forgiveness was being made by the people who had done the hurting and done nothing to make up for it. But then, that was the standard 'blame the victim' abuser mentally, and to be expected.
Gideon seemed to work through this slap in the face and let it slide.
He said, "For a while I thought maybe, you know, if I could talk to the people responsible. If I could show them how difficult life has been because of them, that maybe they would care. I don't know. I thought maybe if they apologized, it would be so much easier to forget this shit. You know? To do what they say and 'let it go'. But nobody will take any personal responsibility. My own parents have nothing to offer but a bunch of whiny excuses. They try to convince me that my life wasn't as bad as I remember it."
"Fuck that," he said, "They weren't even there. They don't even know what went on with me. I just..."
He paused and pulled his fingers through his hair.
"Christ," he said. He paused again, eyes to the sky, and then back to her.
"Even the people who never personally raised a hand against me still propped up the regime that made it happen. They stood by and allowed it. Played a part. All of them. Every single one was a participant. Either directly or by looking away. Institutionally, doctrinally, they abused us. Sent us into the streets to beg, denied us an education, had us beaten, starved, exorcised, and separated from our parents. They broke up our families, gave our bodies to perverts, and stole our future. And then they turn around and say we're supposed to just forget it happened and move on from it. If instead we bring up the past, then they'll call us liars. Say we're exaggerating or making it up completely. Why the hell would be make any of this shit up? What's the point in that? To make our lives seem worse than they were? Not that I would, but do you have any idea how much exaggeration it would take for the average person to even begin to grasp how fucking miserable it was? And then, if they ever do admit to any of it, they say that 'mistakes were made'. "
"Mistakes." he said. He was leaning forward again, punctuating the air with his finger.
"Michael, they commit crimes against children. You know, those things people in society go to jail for when they're caught. And then to the public they do what they always do. Deny. Deny. Deny. And we're left more raped than ever. Victimized first by what they did, and again by their refusal to admit that it happened. They paint us as bitter apostates and liars to a world that not only doesn't give a shit, but also couldn't possibly understand even if it did."
"I do," Munroe said. And Gideon stopped.
”
”
Taylor Stevens (The Innocent (Vanessa Michael Munroe, #2))
“
She stared in horror at the pie table. Each of Nick’s hands had landed in a pie. His gray shirt was splattered with crust and whipped cream and berries. Even worse, his face was completely covered. The pie ladies and the other judges rushed to help, trying to right the remaining pies while keeping Nick from dripping berry juice all over the table. At one time Maddie might have done something as impulsive as push Ashby back. But now she took a step away. When she looked at Ashby, she was holding a pie. Actually, she was a second away from launching it. “Just put down the pie and walk away, and we’ll let bygones be bygones.” Maddie felt like she should be wearing a police uniform and holding a stun gun instead of contemplating arming herself with pies. Ashby tossed her a defiant look and cranked up the pie. “Let’s just talk like civilized—” Too late. Ashby tossed the pie, a direct hit to Maddie’s face. The pie splattered all over—her hair, her clothes, blinding her and covering her nose so she couldn’t breathe. This was war. Maddie scooped enough pie off her face so she could see. “Okay, I guess we’re past talking.” Something devilish came over her, that feeling of pure kicking-someone’s-butt that she hadn’t felt since she was nine and Derrick ambushed her Barbies with his GI Joes and held them for ransom money. Maddie picked up a certain pie from the table. One of Ashby’s. It hovered in Maddie’s hands like a Frisbee. Clearing both her pie eyes for good aim, she let it rip. Fluffs of whipped cream spread everywhere, in Ashby’s perfect hair and all over her designer sundress.
”
”
Miranda Liasson (Heart and Sole (Kingston Family #1))
“
Jamie guessed he wasn’t sure if calling it a homeless shelter when it was filled with homeless people was somehow offensive. He’d had two complaints lodged against him in the last twelve months alone for the use of ‘inappropriate’ language. Roper was a fossil, stuck in a by-gone age, struggling to stay afloat. He of course wouldn’t have this problem if he bothered to read any of the sensitivity emails HR pinged out. But he didn’t. And now he was on his final warning. Jamie left him to flounder and scanned the crowd and the room for anything amiss. People were watching them. But not maliciously. Mostly out of a lack of anything else to do. They’d been there overnight by the look of it. Places like this popped up all over the city to let them stay inside on cold nights. The problem was finding a space that would house them. ‘No, not the owner,’ Mary said, sighing. ‘I just rent the space from the council. The ceiling is asbestos, and they can’t use it for anything, won’t get it replaced.’ She shrugged her shoulders so high that they touched the earrings. ‘But these people don’t mind. We’re not eating the stuff, so…’ She laughed a little. Jamie thought it sounded sad. It sort of was. The council wouldn’t let children play in there, wouldn’t let groups rent it, but they were happy to take payment and let the homeless in. It was safe enough for them. She pushed her teeth together and started studying the faded posters on the walls that encouraged conversations about domestic abuse, about drug addiction. From when this place was used. They looked like they were at least a decade old, maybe two. Bits of tape clung to the paint around them, scraps of coloured paper frozen in time, preserving images of long-past birthday parties. There was a meagre stage behind the coffee dispenser, and to the right, a door led into another room. ‘Do you know this boy?’ Roper asked, holding up his phone, showing Mary a photo of Oliver Hammond taken that morning. The officers who arrived on scene had taken it and attached it to the central case file. Roper was just accessing it from there. It showed Oliver’s face at an angle, greyed and bloated from the water. ‘My God,’ Mary said, throwing a weathered hand to her mouth. It wasn’t easy for people who weren’t exposed to death regularly to stomach seeing something like that. ‘Ms Cartwright,’ Roper said, leaning a little to his left to look in her eyes as she turned away. ‘Can you identify this person? I know it’s hard—’ ‘Oliver — Ollie, he preferred. Hammond, I think. I can check my files…’ She turned and pointed towards the back room Jamie had spotted. ‘If you want—’ Roper put the phone away.
”
”
Morgan Greene (Bare Skin (DS Jamie Johansson, #1))
“
up. Life is not unlike cinema. Each scene has its own music, and the music is created for the scene, woven to it in ways we do not understand. No matter how much we may love the melody of a bygone day or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance within the music of today, or we will always be out of step, stumbling around in something that doesn’t suit the moment. I let go of the river’s song and found the music of that big house. I found room for a new life, a new mother who cared for me, and a new father who patiently taught me not only how to play music, but how to trust. He was as good a man as ever I’ve known. Oh, it was never like the Arcadia, but it was a good life. We were loved and cherished and protected.” A sigh lifts her shoulders, then releases her. “To look at me now,
”
”
Lisa Wingate (Before We Were Yours)
“
If a platform achieves scale and becomes the de facto standard for its industry, the network effects of compatibility and standards (combined with the ability to rapidly iterate and optimize the platform) create a significant and lasting competitive advantage that can be nearly unassailable. This dominance lets the market leader “tax” all the participants who want to use the platform, much as levies were imposed in the bygone Republic of Venice. For example, the iTunes store takes a 30 percent share of the proceeds whenever a song, a movie, a book, or an app is sold on that platform. These platform revenues tend to have very high gross margins, which generate cash that can be plowed back into making the platform even better. Amazon’s merchant platform, Facebook’s social graph, and, of course, Apple’s iOS ecosystem are great examples of the power of platforms.
”
”
Reid Hoffman (Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies)
“
You must let bygones be bygones.
”
”
W. Somerset Maugham (65 Short Stories)
“
bygone day or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance within the music of today, or we will always be out of step, stumbling around in something that doesn’t suit the moment. I let go of the river’s song and found
”
”
Lisa Wingate (Before We Were Yours)
“
I love you,” he said into her hair. “I’ve loved you from that first day in your office when you tried to fire me.”
“I wasn’t trying to fire you,” she said into his shirt. “I was simply suggesting that the hotel security business might not be a good fit for you and that you ought to pursue other professional opportunities.”
“You tried to fire me. But under the circumstances I’m willing to let bygones be bygones.”
“Good. That’s good.
”
”
Jayne Ann Krentz (Secret Sisters)
“
unlike cinema. Each scene has its own music, and the music is created for the scene, woven to it in ways we do not understand. No matter how much we may love the melody of a bygone day or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance within the music of today, or we will always be out of step, stumbling around in something that doesn’t suit the moment. I let go of the river’s song and found the music of that big house. I found room for a new
”
”
Lisa Wingate (Before We Were Yours)
“
When I'm sitting in my counselor chair and I hear these phrases being spoken to a partner, I often stop the action and say "You are heading in the wrong direction. Proceed only if you intend to wreck this relationship.":
"Haven't you gotten over that yet?" "I'm sorry that you were offended." "I asked for and received forgiveness from God." "I should be excused because I..." "You're too sensitive. It was only joking." "Why do you always..." "If you hadn't..." "You sound like your mother." "That's just silly." "That's life." "What's the big deal?" "To the extent that you were offended..." "Gimme a break." "You just need to get over it." "There's nothing I can do about that now. I can't take away the past." "Why can't you let bygones be bygones?
”
”
Gary Chapman (When Sorry Isn't Enough: Making Things Right with Those You Love)
“
Hullo there, jester," the poet said with a bright smile. Lionheart, who had not made himself known wondered just how the blind poet had known he was there. "I say, it's a bit discomfiting, isn't it? Old Ragniprava prowling abut the place, I mean. I've almost bumped into him once or twice. It's the most socially awkward situation. I mean, what do you say? 'Greetings, my lord, sorry about the eye. Shall we let bygones be bygones?' It's not as though I can make him the whole eye-for-an-eye offer, can I?
”
”
Anne Elisabeth Stengl (Moonblood (Tales of Goldstone Wood, #3))
“
That Nohle consented to appear before the commission at all was a testament to the willingness of thousands of black South Africans to set aside their deep yearning to see their abusers put behind bars. I remember standing with her in one of the cells where Biko had lain damaged and inert. I asked her then, a year and a half before the commission set to work, whether she could ever be reconciled with the people who had so mutilated her life. She turned on me, her eyes cold and piercing, her body taut with controlled anger, and said: ‘There is hatred in me, and it is for them to try to rub out that hatred. You must have the truth first and then you can think about reconciliation. I don’t agree when they say, “Let bygones be bygones, let’s try to forget about the past and try to reconcile.” Reconcile what?
”
”
George Alagiah (A Passage To Africa)
“
We're strange, so the dinosaurs should flee if you make yourself scary-big." I tap his shoulder with my finger. "No gun unless it's got your head in its jaws."
"And if it tries to eat anything else of mine, I suppose I should let bygones be bygones?
”
”
Eli Donovan (Time Traitors)
“
had no plans of becoming “best bros” with Clyde, but I figured it was better to let bygones be bygones than be the “angry Black man” at Sumwun.
”
”
Mateo Askaripour (Black Buck)
“
Envy said, “Girl, I remember well,
ye, who I flung from Hell,
and not a day has passed, I haven’t missed
the loss of your soul that I mourned,
I’ve been bereft and forlorn,
for the sweet taste of your flesh I’ve yet to kiss.
But no worries—bygones,
that’s the past—long gone,
I don’t hold a grudge, no, in no way.
And though your family they did swindle
my joy of flaying ye on a spindle,
I begrudge ye not a little, so let’s play.
So, merely toss your token in my well,
and all your dreams I will unveil,
for ye alone, them I’ll grant.
Come closer, little Penny,
your hands I know are not empty,
ye have something I dreadfully want.
”
”
A. Lee Brock (Penny Willan and the Well: A Fairy Tale of Ode)
“
Let bygones be bygones, but we cannot and should not forget.
”
”
Dorothy Ko (Cinderella's Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding)
“
let bygones be bygones
”
”
American traditional idiom
“
Instead, we have to remember to treat every day and every moment as if it was a clean slate. Bygones—let them go. Those other spazzes were in the past. We’re creating this new moment and it can go any way we want.
”
”
Alyson Schafer (Honey, I Wrecked The Kids: When Yelling, Screaming, Threats, Bribes, Time-outs, Sticker Charts and Removing Privileges All Don't Work)
“
Let bygones be bygones
”
”
Mcheimech
“
At sunset say goodbye to hurt, to suffering, goodbye to the pain
you caused others. Good bye, bye, don't cry.
”
”
Joy Harjo (An American Sunrise)
“
No endings
All seasons have ended,
Life that began once, it too has ended,
But in all these endings something is born,
A new hope, a new desire, a new wish is born,
Old visions have ended,
Old realities do not exist anymore, they too have ended,
Because sometimes the heart wants to seek more,
So the mind ends the old, to be able to align itself with the heart a little more,
Yesterday's dreams are over, their appeal has ended,
All moments associated with all yesterdays and bygone days, have ended,
But the feeling to seek a new end has surfaced,
And to support this pursuit to seek a new end, a new beginning has surfaced,
Past has become insignificant because it has ended,
And before the present moments end too like the past that just now ended,
The present has arrived,
And with it many hopes too have arrived,
But, her memories, her feelings, her sensations, none of them have ended,
Because she appeared as the only beginning when everything had ended,
So my new romance with her has begun,
That begins with every new end, and I love whatever in its wake has begun,
Tomorrow, today will have ended,
Just like the moments that belong to the moment called now, will in the next moment have ended,
But she is neither like today nor like the disappearing moments of time,
She is the feeling that becomes more relevant and more anchored in the present, unlike the virtue of time!
So let me love her until everything has ended,
To know what actually begins when everything has ended,
And be sure that it is my love for her that can never die or be confounded,
These maybe lover’s solicitous feelings, and maybe it is due to them my love for her can never be confounded!
”
”
Javid Ahmad Tak (They Loved in 2075!)
“
Forgiveness doesn’t mean you’re going to be best friends with the person who hurt you either, it doesn’t mean you have to endorse what they’ve done to you. Forgiveness is not forgetting what has happened. It just means accepting that they’ve left a mark on you. A mark that is now your burden to bear. It means you’re done waiting for the person who broke you to come put you back together. Forgiveness means to let bygones be bygones. Forgiveness is letting go. And we must let go if we want to heal.
”
”
Marvin Scholz (Learning How to Heal a Broken Heart: Transforming Breakdowns into Breakthroughs)
“
Can we agree that we were both idiots—” “Yes.” “—And just let bygones be bygones.
”
”
Cat Sebastian (Tommy Cabot Was Here (The Cabots #1))
“
Forced schooling is a cultural relic, reminiscent of a bygone age. Stuck preparing young people to do the jobs now done by robots, mass schooling ignores the cultural and economic realities of a new human era. Instead of robots, we need inventive thinkers, curious seekers, and passionate doers. Inventiveness, curiosity, and passion are all characteristics that young children naturally exude. We don’t need to train them for the jobs of the future; we just need to stop training these inborn characteristics out of them. We need to give them the freedom and opportunity to pursue their passions, follow their curiosity, and invent creative solutions to complex problems. Given the vast amount of information available to us, the creative skills necessary to process it all, and the seemingly insurmountable challenges our planet now faces, we desperately need to embrace a new paradigm of education. We need to let go of the notion of schooling—something someone does to someone else—and instead reclaim learning—something humans naturally do.
”
”
Kerry McDonald (Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom)
“
Life is not unlike cinema. Each scene has its own music, and the music is created for the scene, woven to it in ways we do not understand. No matter how much we may love the melody of a bygone day or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance within the music of today, or we will always be out of step, stumbling around in something that doesn’t suit the moment. I let
”
”
Lisa Wingate (Before We Were Yours)
“
Pick Your Battles
You’ll be pretty worn out, and friendless, if you try to fight every battle that
comes your way on the relationship front. In fact, people who try to fight every
battle are often seen as reactive and extremist, and are rarely taken seriously.
But the wise among us know that people make mistakes, they have general
human failings, and the wise know that we have to let bygones be bygones many
times in our relationships with people.
If you take a live-and-let-live approach to dealing with people, you will find that
they will give the same to you. Let the petty go, let it roll off your back, and save
your energy for the bigger things that can bring real meaning to your life.
Not only will this help you stay balanced, but it will also make people more apt to
forgive and forget quickly when you mess up yourself—and you will, from time to
time.
”
”
Robert Dittmer (151 Quick Ideas to Improve Your People Skills)
“
Let bygone be bygone. Be calm, vigilant, and wait for the ideal time to demand the impossible.
”
”
Vipin Sharma
“
Dead periods have to be left to take their chances. This goes for the present too, which we should not try to disturb in its melancholy deliquescence. Even in politics - indeed especially in politics - relentless therapy is the worst of things. This is exactly what socialists practise on the social, ecologists on nature and all of us on a host of defunct ideologies: a relentless therapy. Living on because we refuse to see technology give in to death. Anticipating everything, hoarding everything, because we refuse to see events slipping beyond our grasp. We cultivate the coma of yesteryear. We adore artificial transplants. We go crazy over prostheses. Everywhere this relentless clinging to life corresponds to the emaciation of the original figures of life, to the disincarnation of bodies, to the therapeutic reincarnation of a dead world, a bygone age.
A society which allows an abominable event to burgeon from its dungheap and grow on its surface is like a man who lets a fly crawl unheeded across his face or saliva dribble unstemmed from his mouth - either epileptic or dead.
”
”
Jean Baudrillard (Cool Memories)
“
These incidents point to the pain and sensitivity of the American racial situation for children, parents, thought leaders, and policymakers. But why not let bygones be bygones? Why not just move to higher social and moral ground without wading through the muck, mire, and pain of past and even present transgressions? The reason is that race is not the underlying and central problem. As real, omnipresent, pervasive, and destructive as the issue has been and continues to be, it obscures the real problem: that critical flaw in human nature or the very frequent tendency of the privileged to exploit the vulnerable less privileged. Without understanding the complex ways race obscures this underlying and generative problem, we cannot adequately address it.
”
”
Glenn E. Singleton (More Courageous Conversations About Race)
“
You're old enough to hear this, Randy. You're old enough to learn from it. Someday you'll be married, and at first it'll be a bed of roses, and then the humdrum starts in and you forget to do the small things that made that person fall in love with you in the first place. You stop saying good morning, and picking up his shoes when he forgets to take them to his closet, and bringing home the special kind of Dairy Queen he likes. After all, it's out of your way and you're in a hurry. When he says, Do you want to take a bike ride after supper? you say no because you've had a rough day, so he goes alone and you don;t stop to realize that you'd gone with him it would have made your day a little better, And when he takes a shower before bed, you roll over and pretend to be asleep already because, believe it or not, you become to consider sex work. You stop doing these things, and then the other one stops doing them, and pretty soon you're substituting criticism for praise, and giving orders instead of making requests, and letting sex fall by the wayside, and in no time at all the whole marriage falls apart.
”
”
LaVyrle Spencer (Bygones)
“
He meant the Grand Canyon was only a mood of nature, a bold promise, a beautiful record. He meant that mountains had sifted away in its dust, yet the canyon was young. Man was nothing, so let him be humble. This cataclysm of the earth, this playground of a river was not inscrutable; it was only inevitable—as inevitable as nature herself. Millions of years in the bygone ages it had lain serene under a half moon; it would bask silent under a rayless sun, in the onward edge of time.
It taught simplicity, serenity, peace. The eye that saw only the strife, the war, the decay, the ruin, or only the glory and the tragedy, saw not all the truth. It spoke simply, though its words were grand: "My spirit is the Spirit of Time, of Eternity, of God. Man is little, vain, vaunting. Listen. To-morrow he shall be gone. Peace! Peace!
”
”
Zane Grey (The Last of the Plainsmen)
“
since transactions on today’s platforms are conducted through application programming interfaces (APIs) rather than person-to-person negotiations, they proceed swiftly, seamlessly, and in incredible volumes, all with barely any human intervention. If a platform achieves scale and becomes the de facto standard for its industry, the network effects of compatibility and standards (combined with the ability to rapidly iterate and optimize the platform) create a significant and lasting competitive advantage that can be nearly unassailable. This dominance lets the market leader “tax” all the participants who want to use the platform, much as levies were imposed in the bygone Republic of Venice. For example, the iTunes store takes a 30 percent share of the proceeds whenever a song, a movie, a book, or an app is sold on that platform. These platform revenues tend to have very high gross margins,
”
”
Reid Hoffman (Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies)
“
speaking of them, it is necessary to remember that what they left recorded on paper was the least important part of their lives. It is the lesson that is expressed in the Chuang Tzu book in the story of the Duke of Ch’i and his wheelwright. It tells how the wheelwright saw the Duke reading, and called to ask him what the book was about. The words of sages,’ the Duke explained. The lees and scum of bygone men,’ the wheelwright said; and when the irritated Duke asked him what the devil he meant by this, the wheelwright told him: There is an art in wheel-making that I cannot explain even to my son. It cannot be put into words. That is why I cannot let him take over my work, and I am still making wheels myself at seventy. It must have been the same with the sages: all that was worth handing on died with them. The rest they put into their books. That is why I said you are reading the lees and scum of dead men.’
This lesson should be especially taken to heart in reading the works of the visionaries dealt with in the following chapters. The essentials of what they saw died with them. Their value for us does not lie in the ‘visions’ their words can conjure up for us, but in the instructions they left for anyone who should want to see the same things that they saw. It lies, in other words, in the discipline they recommend
”
”
Colin Wilson
“
So the world accuses us of whining, eh! They think fifty years is enough time to put 6 million ghosts out of our mind! Let bygones be bygones! Love thy neighbor! Live and let live! LIKE HELL!
”
”
David Lucero (The Sandman)
“
I learned a big lesson from that: People come and go in life, but when the ones who really matter resurface, it's best to let bygones be bygones and focus on the good.
”
”
Teri Garr (Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood)